{"title":"Remembering Peter Hudson","authors":"Andrew Nash","doi":"10.1353/trn.2020.0039","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/trn.2020.0039","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45045,"journal":{"name":"Transformation-Critical Perspectives on Southern Africa","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2020-12-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76899466","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Unemployment and the gendered economy in South Africa after Covid-19","authors":"David Francis","doi":"10.1353/trn.2020.0036","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/trn.2020.0036","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45045,"journal":{"name":"Transformation-Critical Perspectives on Southern Africa","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2020-12-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74247137","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The question of life is and has been one of the most important and keenly contested questions of the modern era. What constitutes life? When does life begin? What is the essence of human life? What is the distinction, and how is this evidenced, between being alive and having life? And, whose life matters? These ideas were famously explored in Bruno Latour’s (2013) An Inquiry into Modes of Existence where he lays out the dilemma that faced us. All we have to rely on in understanding the world in which we live and in defining ourselves against that which is not ‘us’, he suggested, was science. But, can we trust science: ‘[w]hen it is a matter of obtaining valid knowledge about objects as complex as whole systems of the Earth, knowledge that must lead to radical changes in the most intimate details of existence for billions of people, it is infinitely safer to rely on the institution of science than on indisputable certainty. But also infinitely riskier’ (2013:4). The risk lies in placing our trust and understanding of the world in institutions of knowledge that have historically
生命的问题一直是现代最重要、争论最激烈的问题之一。生命是由什么构成的?生命从何时开始?人类生命的本质是什么?活着和拥有生命之间的区别是什么，如何证明这一点?谁的生命重要?布鲁诺·拉图尔(Bruno Latour)在2013年出版的《对存在模式的探究》(An Inquiry into Modes of Existence)一书中对这些观点进行了著名的探讨，他在书中阐述了我们面临的困境。他认为，要理解我们所生活的世界，并根据非“我们”来定义自己，我们所依赖的就是科学。但是，我们能相信科学吗?“当我们要获得关于像地球整个系统这样复杂的物体的有效知识时，这些知识必然会导致数十亿人生活中最亲密的细节发生根本变化时，依靠科学机构比依靠无可争辩的确定性要安全得多。”但也有无限的风险”(2013:4)。风险在于将我们对世界的信任和理解置于历史上
{"title":"Viral life: Covid-19's destabilisation of our thinking","authors":"Rachelle Adams, C. Soudien","doi":"10.1353/trn.2020.0028","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/trn.2020.0028","url":null,"abstract":"The question of life is and has been one of the most important and keenly contested questions of the modern era. What constitutes life? When does life begin? What is the essence of human life? What is the distinction, and how is this evidenced, between being alive and having life? And, whose life matters? These ideas were famously explored in Bruno Latour’s (2013) An Inquiry into Modes of Existence where he lays out the dilemma that faced us. All we have to rely on in understanding the world in which we live and in defining ourselves against that which is not ‘us’, he suggested, was science. But, can we trust science: ‘[w]hen it is a matter of obtaining valid knowledge about objects as complex as whole systems of the Earth, knowledge that must lead to radical changes in the most intimate details of existence for billions of people, it is infinitely safer to rely on the institution of science than on indisputable certainty. But also infinitely riskier’ (2013:4). The risk lies in placing our trust and understanding of the world in institutions of knowledge that have historically","PeriodicalId":45045,"journal":{"name":"Transformation-Critical Perspectives on Southern Africa","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2020-12-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75465166","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Race Otherwise is a contemporary exploration of race and identity in South Africa that attempts to provide us with a new form of humanism that may help us overcome or at least challenge and disrupt racialisation. This book is located in a local non-racialist tradition in which race is to be overcome or transcended through creative ways of reimagining ourselves and how we relate to one another. It locates the problem of race in the way we think about each other and ourselves. Given this attitudinal focus, the ultimate proposal of the book of how South Africa is to move forward is by engaging in what Erasmus views as a radical form of love.
{"title":"Race Otherwise: forging a new humanism for South Africa by Zimitri Erasmus (review)","authors":"P. Msimang","doi":"10.1353/trn.2020.0024","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/trn.2020.0024","url":null,"abstract":"Race Otherwise is a contemporary exploration of race and identity in South Africa that attempts to provide us with a new form of humanism that may help us overcome or at least challenge and disrupt racialisation. This book is located in a local non-racialist tradition in which race is to be overcome or transcended through creative ways of reimagining ourselves and how we relate to one another. It locates the problem of race in the way we think about each other and ourselves. Given this attitudinal focus, the ultimate proposal of the book of how South Africa is to move forward is by engaging in what Erasmus views as a radical form of love.","PeriodicalId":45045,"journal":{"name":"Transformation-Critical Perspectives on Southern Africa","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2020-12-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76229992","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Cities of Entanglements: social life in Johannesburg and Maputo through ethnographic comparison by Barbara Heer (review)","authors":"Paul Jenkins","doi":"10.1353/trn.2020.0019","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/trn.2020.0019","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45045,"journal":{"name":"Transformation-Critical Perspectives on Southern Africa","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2020-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"73837495","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract:Local government is central to the delivery of the state's developmental agenda, but many municipalities record poor financial management and operational outcomes. Mainstream explanations of these focus on the low level of skills of officials and/or their self-interested and unethical behaviour. As a result, proposed remedies focus on training, raising ethical standards, and increased regulation. None of these initiatives appear to be working, however. Drawing on fieldwork which largely focused on investigating the narratives of non-compliance, this paper suggests that this issue is far more complex than the mainstream explanations suggest. Both codified and uncodified rules interact in complex ways to influence bureaucratic actions and decision making. The framework of 'logics of appropriateness' offers a more useful approach to explaining non-compliance in local government, because it facilitates a richer and more nuanced analysis of the multiple rules that determine the behaviour of public officials in post-apartheid South Africa.
{"title":"'The logic of appropriateness': understanding non-compliance in South African local government","authors":"Tracy Ledger","doi":"10.1353/trn.2020.0012","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/trn.2020.0012","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:Local government is central to the delivery of the state's developmental agenda, but many municipalities record poor financial management and operational outcomes. Mainstream explanations of these focus on the low level of skills of officials and/or their self-interested and unethical behaviour. As a result, proposed remedies focus on training, raising ethical standards, and increased regulation. None of these initiatives appear to be working, however. Drawing on fieldwork which largely focused on investigating the narratives of non-compliance, this paper suggests that this issue is far more complex than the mainstream explanations suggest. Both codified and uncodified rules interact in complex ways to influence bureaucratic actions and decision making. The framework of 'logics of appropriateness' offers a more useful approach to explaining non-compliance in local government, because it facilitates a richer and more nuanced analysis of the multiple rules that determine the behaviour of public officials in post-apartheid South Africa.","PeriodicalId":45045,"journal":{"name":"Transformation-Critical Perspectives on Southern Africa","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2020-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87886256","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract:The present condition of the South African state has attracted a great deal of attention in recent years, with many questions raised about the failure of the post-apartheid state to both transform and deliver. While much of this attention has centred around perceptions of corruption, self-enrichment and state capture, there has been little attempt to integrate the lived experiences of municipal bureaucrats into this discourse, and even less to apply theory to analyse the internal workings of municipalities. This paper seeks to address that gap, by providing key insights from interviews with municipal officials in Mogalakwena Local Municipality during a period of great conflict and upheaval, and attempts to analyse the political manoeuvrings of the key players by applying Michel Foucault's 'micro-physical' approach to power relations, and to analyse the consequences of such actions through a Foucauldian lens.
{"title":"Being watched, being excluded and being made to speak the 'truth': Foucault and power relations within a Limpopo municipality","authors":"T. Lesaffre","doi":"10.1353/trn.2020.0014","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/trn.2020.0014","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:The present condition of the South African state has attracted a great deal of attention in recent years, with many questions raised about the failure of the post-apartheid state to both transform and deliver. While much of this attention has centred around perceptions of corruption, self-enrichment and state capture, there has been little attempt to integrate the lived experiences of municipal bureaucrats into this discourse, and even less to apply theory to analyse the internal workings of municipalities. This paper seeks to address that gap, by providing key insights from interviews with municipal officials in Mogalakwena Local Municipality during a period of great conflict and upheaval, and attempts to analyse the political manoeuvrings of the key players by applying Michel Foucault's 'micro-physical' approach to power relations, and to analyse the consequences of such actions through a Foucauldian lens.","PeriodicalId":45045,"journal":{"name":"Transformation-Critical Perspectives on Southern Africa","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2020-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82806346","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract:Democratic decentralisation was introduced in South Africa during the transition to democracy (1990-1994). It followed a long trajectory of centralisation and decentralisation processes that took place during apartheid. This paper argues that in order to more adequately understand the prospects for decentralisation to achieve its intended outcomes in South African local government, one has to understand some of the complexities and political dynamics present in this sphere of government. In so doing, it shows that the intended outcomes of decentralisation are far from the realities of local government on the ground, specifically municipalities. Case studies of two Limpopo mining town municipalities, Lephalale and Mogalakwena, are used to demonstrate some of these complexities and political dynamics. The Mogalakwena case study will show that, despite the codification of recentralisation in the South African constitution, regional and political party elites misuse the policy to politically interfere in municipalities. The effects of this are that service delivery slows down and local government is subjected to localised national and provincial political battles. The Lephalale case study shows how the layers of decentralisation between apartheid and democracy have led to this municipality being dependent on private and parastatal mining companies for the provision of and access to public goods and services.
{"title":"Decentralisation and recentralisation in South Africa's local government: case studies of two municipalities in Limpopo","authors":"Thokozani Chilenga-Butao","doi":"10.1353/trn.2020.0011","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/trn.2020.0011","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:Democratic decentralisation was introduced in South Africa during the transition to democracy (1990-1994). It followed a long trajectory of centralisation and decentralisation processes that took place during apartheid. This paper argues that in order to more adequately understand the prospects for decentralisation to achieve its intended outcomes in South African local government, one has to understand some of the complexities and political dynamics present in this sphere of government. In so doing, it shows that the intended outcomes of decentralisation are far from the realities of local government on the ground, specifically municipalities. Case studies of two Limpopo mining town municipalities, Lephalale and Mogalakwena, are used to demonstrate some of these complexities and political dynamics. The Mogalakwena case study will show that, despite the codification of recentralisation in the South African constitution, regional and political party elites misuse the policy to politically interfere in municipalities. The effects of this are that service delivery slows down and local government is subjected to localised national and provincial political battles. The Lephalale case study shows how the layers of decentralisation between apartheid and democracy have led to this municipality being dependent on private and parastatal mining companies for the provision of and access to public goods and services.","PeriodicalId":45045,"journal":{"name":"Transformation-Critical Perspectives on Southern Africa","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2020-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86507701","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Revisiting the legacy of Neil Aggett","authors":"E. Webster","doi":"10.1353/trn.2020.0017","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/trn.2020.0017","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45045,"journal":{"name":"Transformation-Critical Perspectives on Southern Africa","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2020-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83643946","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Real and Imagined Readers: censorship, publishing and reading under apartheid by Rachel Matteau Matsha (review)","authors":"M. Malaba","doi":"10.1353/trn.2020.0018","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/trn.2020.0018","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45045,"journal":{"name":"Transformation-Critical Perspectives on Southern Africa","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2020-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90990562","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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